Ubisoft's Plans for 2010-11

Ubisoft today announced their upcoming plans for the 2010-2011 fiscal year (April through to April). Amongst the information is the unfortunate news that Splinter Cell: Conviction is being delayed AGAIN, and a mysterious new Assassin's Creed project. And also the fantastic news that their priorities are now set right again...

• Despite relatively robust sales for Wii and DS casual games, sales in the casual segment are expected to down by around 50%, and as such Ubisoft's 2010-11 line-up will be more focused on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the consoles which are expected to experience sustained sales growth in games for gamers in calendar 2010.

• A new mysterious Assassin's Creed was let slip, described as a new "episode", and will include an online multiplayer mode. This project is completely independent of Assassin's Creed II, but will continue the story on from the game, with Ezio returning as the protagonist.

• The perpetual delays for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction continue, being pushed back once again, from February 23rd to April 2010.

• Similarly, upcoming World War II-set RTS R.U.S.E. is also being pushed back from February 2nd to the very vague release date of 2010-11.

• Ubisoft also confirmed that the following titles are currently scheduled to ship in the 2010-11 fiscal year: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, a new game in the Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Driver, Raving Rabbids 4 and the above Assassin's Creed game. Pretty great year for Ubisoft's sequels, no? Not only that though, Ubi also announced "other new franchises and innovations will also be announced throughout the year."

• And finally, Ubisoft are planning further market concentration towards AAA high-quality games (and why wouldn't they?!). Assassin's Creed II sold over 6 million, whereas lesser projects such as James Cameron's Avatar weren't received nearly as well and experienced disappointingly lackluster sales, so Ubisoft will be focusing on creating more projects like the former. So that's more AAA, highly-acclaimed, universally-praised and high-selling games and less movie tie-ins? Total freakin' win.

All in all, despite the disappointing delay of DNF-wannabe Splinter Cell Conviction, it sounds like it's going to be a pretty good year for both Ubisoft and us gamers.